Robotics Engineer Barbie is Here to Inspire Girls to Pursue STEM Careers

Barbie picked an interesting time of year to trade in her bikini and pink stilettos for sneakers and safety goggles. This summer, she’s blazing a new trail in a casual jean jacket, graphic T-shirt and sensible hairstyle in her new career as a robotics engineer.

Mattel introduced the new doll last week as a way of encouraging girls to consider coding and STEM careers. It’s an exciting career refresh for Barbie, who has dabbled in 200 different jobs over the years. She’s been an astronaut, paleontologist, architect, doctor and many others.

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Set Up For Success

Now, she’s all about STEM: science, technology, engineering and math. In fact, the doll is part of a partnership with Tynker, a game-based computing platform for kids.

The new Barbie comes with fun and educational accessories. She has a robot and a laptop loaded with code.

Best of all, this Barbie talks the talk when it comes to actually educating girls: The doll comes with six free Barbie-inspired online coding lessons geared for kids ages 7 and up. As the building blocks of coding, the lessons teach logic and problem-solving.

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Code Is Cool

Barbie’s not the only one making coding cool for girls. Supermodel Karlie Kloss launched Kode with Klossy in 2015 to help girls with an interest in coding gain access to educational tools.

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Now, girls ages 13 to 18 can apply for Kode with Klossy summer camps across the country. At the camps, these smart “kookies” learn to code and build real-life apps. The free camps empower girls to pursue a career in tech.

“Women are essential in forging digital progress and knowing how to code is the key to exploring and creating the newest frontier,” Kloss shared on the Kode with Klossy website.

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Now Barbie is part of inspiring this next generation of girls, too.